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Are Granola Bars Sweet?

Question

(from Twitter) Do you consider a chocolate chip granola bar to be sweet? Or any granola/power bar for that matter?

Answer:

Yes, I consider them sweet. Most individually wrapped and boxed granola bars are sugar-laden. They may or may not contain High Fructose Corn Syrup by they almost always have added sugars. I don’t eat any of the energy bars that you will find at most bicycle shops as they are basically candy bars—just with more nuts than a Snickers bar.

Here are the ingredients from Quaker chocolate chip granola bars:

Ingredients: Granola (Quaker Rolled Oats, Rolled Whole Wheat, Brown Sugar, Sunflower Oil, Fructose-Glucose, Dried Unsweetened Coconut, Honey, Sodium Bicarbonate, Natural Flavor, Modified Milk Ingredients), Glucose, Chocolate Chips (Sugar, Chocolate Liquor, Cocoa Butter, Soy Lecithin, Salt, Vanillin), Crisp Rice (Rice Flour, Sugar, Malt Extract, Salt), Glycerin, Sunflower Oil, Sugar, Sorbitol, Salt, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Molasses, Soy Lecithin, BHA (Preservative), Citric Acid, Sulphites.

CONTAINS: COCONUT, WHEAT, MILK, SOY, and SULPHITE ingredients.

That said, I will personally eat Larabars from time-to-time and also sometimes eat a form of “energy bar” (as they call it) that’s sold in the bulk food aisle at Fred Meyer supermarkets. These are some of my borderline replacement foods that I turn to when things get really stressful and I am “dying” for sweet junk food.

Make Your Own

Ultimately, it all depends on you. Some people can limit their sweets to higher quality, home made or hand made health food snacks and be very happy with that. Have a look at this recipe and make your own granola bars with alternative forms of sweeteners. There’s nothing like knowing you’re eating something you made. That way you know what’s inside it and what you’re putting inside of you!

PS - Look at this page on SugarStacks.com for a visual about how much sugar is in a Power Bar and a Cliff Bar.

Posted on Jul 26, 2010 : Comments: (0)

How Long Does It Take To Quit Sugar?

The most common question that people ask me is, “How log does it take to quit sugar?” To which I answer, “How long does it take to become good at chess?”

Here’s the thing. Quitting sugar is not like quitting smoking. When yo quit smoking the idea is that you will never again smoke a cigarette. That’s a very possible thing to do. How one gets there is up to the individual. Some folks quit cold turkey in one day based on a whim or a gut feeling. Others take years to get off the smokes. The key is that you have to want to do it.

Quitting sugar, on the other hand, is darn near impossible. There are many foods that contain sugar or turn into sugar. Where do you draw the line? Bread? Fruit? Carrots? Thinking that you’ll just up and quit one day is like trying to be a great chess player THIS WEEK—it’s not going to happen. You have to practice. You have to lose a lot. You will win as well, but you certainly will lose. That’s part of the process. Getting off sugar is a process and staying off sugar is a skill.

How long does it take to stop being sweet? It takes one year. The Stop Being Sweet eBook explains the process for creating sustainable abstinence programs in a step by step manor. It also warns you about the pitfalls you will encounter along the way, what you should expect during the detox time, and more.

Related Posts:

Want to Quit Sugar?
Is it impossible to go completely sugar free?
Quitting Sugar is Not ALL or NOTHING!

Posted on Jul 07, 2010 : Comments: (0)

How Do I Know Your Book Is Going To Be The Answer This Time?

DK’s Question: I have a serious sugar addiction. I just can’t seem to stop. I buy vegetables all the time and end up letting them go stale while I continue to eat lots of sweets. I have spent a lot of money on programs and books and end up doing the same thing over and over. How do I know your book is going to be the answer this time.

Answer: It’s not. You are the answer. As long as you continue to put power in books, diets, programs and gurus you’ll never get off sweets. 

If you want to stop, I mean you really want to stop, then STOP. That’s the only way to do it. You have to do it. I didn’t read any book. I just did it. Then I wrote a book to tell people about the path I took.

The reason I sell the Stop Being Sweet eBook is because people ask me how I did it. The reason I don’t just give it away is because people would not value it if I did and they’d blame me if it didn’t “work”. What’s in my book are things to expect when you do get off sweets, how to cope with those things, and suggestions for ways to do it sustainably. Does my book “work”? Yes, it gives you information. Does it make you stop eating sugar? No! You have to do that for yourself. Buying books and blaming them for your failure is addiction behavior. 

Just stop eating sweets. Stop buying the stuff. Make a simple rule for yourself and make yourself accountable for it. Become a non-sweeter. It doesn’t happen overnight, but you have to change your identity from someone who is out of control and “riddled” with this powerless condition to someone who is in control and making choices. You decide what foods you eat and you will continue to eat sweets until you know, see, feel, and agree that your life is being negatively impacted by your chronic sugar consumption. Even then, many people continue to eat junk because they get something out of doing so. What are you getting out of it? Eventually what you get out of it is minuscule compared to what it takes out of you, and that’s when you start to seek a way out.

Healthy eating (and specifically avoiding sugar) is a skill—like brushing teeth. Imagine buying books, watching videos and going to seminars about tooth brushing but all the while never brushing your teeth every day. You have to do it everyday. You have to OWN IT!

“OWN” is “WON” rearranged. Want to win it? Own it! Make it yours. Become an unsweet person. Identify as a person who is avoiding sugar. See how it feels and what troubles you have. Become that person first. Then, when you go to seminars, get books and watch videos, you’ll be surprised at how much faster you grow and your investment in those products will pay off in the form of skills and knowledge.

PS - I don’t eat sugar and when Gwenn (who is extremely adept at vegetable management) is away I end up with old veggies in the fridge.

Posted on Jun 26, 2010 : Comments: (0)

How Long to Get Off Sugar?

A Week is Not Long Enough.

You can avoid sugar for a week. It’s just one week! The first week will probably be the hardest because your body will crave sugar and you will want to give in to temptation. If you’ve only avoided sweets for three days then you’re not losing much by eating candy and breaking your new good food habit. One week is not long enough. Sad thing is most people only go one week and they eat sugar again. Then they go for a week without. That is one bad roller-coaster ride. 

Two Weeks Are Not Long Enough.

You can avoid sugar for two weeks. It’s just two weeks! The first week is really hard but the second week gets a little easier. With one week under your belt it’s silly to break your winning streak by eating a cookie. Keep it up, you’re almost there.

One Month is Not Long Enough.

You can avoid sugar for one month. It’s just four weeks! The first week is really hard but the following weeks always get easier. If you can manage to go a whole month, you can most certainly control your own behavior. You now know that what you eat is your choice. Will you choose to go all the way back to the start or keep going?

Six Weeks is Not Long Enough.

You can avoid sugar for six weeks! This will be especially easy after you avoided sugar for a month. If you fall off the wagon anywhere along the way, remember that you can always beat your last record, even if it’s just by a day.

Three Months is Not Long Enough.

If you can handle one month, you can go for three months. Keep in mind that after three months you will think that you’ve healed yourself of your sugar addiction. This is a dangerous place. Three months of sugar abstinence does not mean you’ve got this whole sugar thing beat. You’re just getting started…

One Year is How Long It Takes.

You can go an entire year without sugar. Really, you can! It’s actually pretty easy (physically) after you get past the first week. By the time you get 12 months into it you’ll have developed new eating habits and you’ll think everyone around you eats too much junk food. But surprising will be your overwhelming desire to go ahead and just have a little bit of that sweet something-something. You’ll be sure that you can manage sugar moderation after a whole year. You will also think that sugar isn’t so bad. You’ll have romantic notions about sugar and you’ll want to go back to it. Don’t give in. You have become an unsweet person and your transformational journey into a healthy new you has just begun. Good luck!

Posted on May 07, 2010 : Comments: (2)

What Is “Sweaty Butt”?

This has been a popular search term, but only one has been brave enough to ask…

Question

WOW!!!! David!!! Your page is so motivating! I am a sugar addict who has not eaten sugar for 14 days now, and I know that it was time now for me to stop abusing my body. And all the signs and symptoms you write are so true and the “sweaty butt.” Can you tell me what that is because actually, when I ate too many sweets, I got short of breath, headached, sweaty and I slept 2 days straight because my body couldn’t deal with the overload…

Answer

When I created a list of the symptoms you might experience after eating nothing but sugar for long periods of time, I added “sweaty butt” as one of the results. No other symptom has attracted as much attention as that one. (Although the mention of poop does come in a close second.) People often write to me and ask what, exactly, I meant by the term. This is going to be frank and somewhat clinical but here’s what I mean when I say that sweaty butt is a symptom of chronic sugar consumption.

When you eat sweets all the time you may feel as if you have the urge to make a deposit. But when you go to the bank no bills come out of your wallet. It wasn’t like you had a false alarm, it was more like the cash just stayed in there. The end result is sweaty butt. It doesn’t happen when your body is sweating. You’re not warm. Just your butt feels sweaty. Pretty sexy, huh? (Please take a moment to really imagine it.)

I have absolutely no scientific basis to say this, but in my mind it is High Fructose Corn Syrup that causes the problem. I imagine the sugary foods you eat never really break down in your stomach or intestines. If you’ve ever left candy in a jar of water for weeks you’ll find that the candy never breaks down—the water never gets absorbed into the candy—and so I imagine that the same thing is happening inside of you. It is like there are wads of candy and cookies all balled up and stuck in your body and the High Fructose Corn Syrup is filtering through to the bottom—your bottom. I’m going to stop now because I’m sure you’re getting hungry with all of this talk about candy and cookies…

I am happy to announce that, when you stop being sweet, you’ll no longer get “sweaty butt” unless you are exercising (in which case your whole body should be sweating). However, if you are still eating sugar (which is so last century) then you might find yourself sweating even when you’re not warm. And that’s the sweaty butt of which I speak. 

My Point?

If you want to lose your sweaty butt, cut out sugar and junk food from your diet.

Posted on Apr 14, 2009 : Comments: (0)

Where Do You Draw The Line?

Hi, David. I stopped eating white sugar beginning with Lent. At first it was easy, but now I am dealing with a lot more cravings. I am wondering where to draw the line. I see you eat natural sugars and bread. I guess I am more of a “black and white” thinker—I worry that if I allow myself the grey area of a trail mix or prunes or raisins that I am just kidding myself, and I haven’t really quit sugar—just made substitutions. Does this make sense? How do you deal with this? I read “Potatoes not Prozac” and I feel like the author had a much more “hardcore” stance—I like a glass of wine, raisins in my oatmeal, etc. I don’t need to lose weight—I don’t want to eliminate all carbs, either. Can you offer some advice? Thanks a million!

Identify your trigger foods and eliminate them. Then replace your trigger foods with replacement foods. I can eat bread and natural sugars because they don’t trigger my desire to binge. If I ate chocolate, however, it’d be all I eat! After you’ve identified your trigger foods, remove them from your diet and replace them with healthy foods.

What you eat and how much is completely under your control, no matter if we want to believe that or not. For some people, eating sweets one day a week is a workable solution. Other people only eat sweets when they have friend over. Or maybe only when they eat out. For a while the only sweet thing I ate was ice cream. Then I limited that to ice cream at birthday parties (but that didn’t last). So in the end I developed the sustainable sugar abstinence plan that I’m on now. It allows me to have sugar once a year and that works for me. The good news is that you can do whatever works for you!

I suggest you listen to this presentation which explains my approach to avoiding sugar. If you want to set up a sustainable sugar abstinence plan for yourself, the Stop Being Sweet ebook explains in detail how to do that.

Hope that helps!

Posted on Mar 17, 2009 : Comments: (1)

Esther Asks About Sugar Detox and Exercise

How long did it take your body to adjust to no sugar… I listened to your mp3 lecture, was it 6 weeks, and withdrawal symptoms?

Withdrawal symptoms can last several weeks. The first few weeks are the hardest but after that the sugar cravings go away.

Also- did yoga help you quit at all? Meditation?

Exercise such as Yoga, Tai Chi, etc. of course helps the process. If you are new to exercising I suggest you take it easy during the first few weeks. Try simply walking once a day and start small. If you have an exercise routine you might find yourself crashing half way through a workout during the “sugar detox” process.

How long did it take before you felt like exercising again?

I never stopped exercising during the whole process. However, after I was off sugar for some time I found myself having more sustainable energy and wanting to (and being able to) take on more activity.

And lastly, what do you do for snacks on hikes (if you hike) and during or after you exercise? I used to do “cliffshots” on long runs or bike trips. I have lots of allergies, corn and rice to name a few.

Try the bulk aisle in the supermarket, but make sure to read the labels! Banana chips may look healthy until you find they are laced with sugar. Try nuts and fruit (dried fruit often has added sugars as well). The Stop Being Sweet ebook has all of this information in more detail. It explains how to create your own sustainable sugar abstinence program, how to read labels, what to expect when quitting sweets, sugar withdrawal symptoms, and more. You can download it instantly, print it out, and begin to stop being sweet by tomorrow morning!

Posted on Mar 13, 2009 : Comments: (11)

Medications That Help Stop Sugar Cravings?

The Questions

Are there any medications that can help stop sugar cravings? Do you think sugar addiction is a chemical problem? Ie too low seratonin so you binge?

The Answers

As far as I know, there is no magic pill that can stop sugar cravings. However, there is a product that will temporarily kill your taste for sweet things. It was reviewed on this site. Watch the video review.

As for Serotonin levels, “a person low in Serotonin will be inclined to consume greater amounts of sugar in an attempt to increase Serotonin production and this may lead to sugar addiction.” (Source: The Hypoglycemic Health Association of Australia)

The only way to “beat sugar addiction” is to recognize it, own it (or own up to it) and avoid all refined and added sugars.

 

Posted on Feb 02, 2009 : Comments: (2)

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